Published in The Journal of experimental biology
Microclimatic variability in tropical forests plays a key role in shaping species distributions and their ability to cope with environmental change, especially for ectotherms. Nonetheless, currently available climatic datasets lack data from the forest interior and, furthermore, our knowledge of thermal tolerance among tropical ectotherms is limite...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
Immune systems provide a key defence against diseases. However, they are not a panacea and so both vertebrates and invertebrates co-opt naturally occurring bioactive compounds to treat themselves against parasites and pathogens. In vertebrates, this co-option is complex, with pharmacodynamics leading to differential effects of treatment at differen...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
Phenotypic flexibility may facilitate range expansion by allowing organisms to maintain high levels of performance when introduced to novel environments. Phenotypic flexibility, such as reversible acclimatization, permits organisms to achieve high performance over a wide range of environmental conditions, without the costly allocation or acquisitio...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
The crab Neohelice granulata inhabits mudflats where it is preyed upon by gulls and, conversely, preys on smaller crabs. Therefore, on seeing moving stimuli, this crab can behave as prey or predator. The crab escape response to visual stimuli has been extensively investigated from the behavioral to the neuronal level. The predatory response (PR), h...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
MSM/Ms (MSM) is a mouse strain derived from Japanese wild mice, Mus musculus molossinus, that maintains the ability to synthesize melatonin in patterns reflecting the ambient photoperiod. The objective of this study was to characterize the effects of photoperiodic variation on metabolic and reproductive traits, and the related changes in pituitary-...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
The periodic striation pattern in skeletal muscle reflects the length of the basic contractile unit: the sarcomere. More than half a century ago, Gordon, Huxley and Julian provided strong support for the 'sliding filament' theory through experiments with single muscle fibres. The sarcomere force-length (FL) relationship has since been extrapolated ...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
Muscle is highly organized across multiple length scales. Consequently, small changes in the arrangement of myofilaments can influence macroscopic mechanical function. Two leg muscles of a cockroach, have identical innervation, mass, twitch responses, length-tension curves, and force-velocity relationships. However, during running, one muscle is di...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
Outdoor recreational activities are booming and most animals perceive humans as predators, which trigger behavioural and/or physiological reactions (e.g. heart rate increase, activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis). Physiological stress reactions have been shown to affect the immune system of an animal and therefore may also af...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
This study evaluated the effect of exposure to either a chronic variable stress (CVS) protocol or social isolation, as well as to treadmill exercise training, in the habituation of the cardiovascular responses upon repeated exposure to restraint stress in rats. The habituation of the corticosterone response to repeated restraint stress was also eva...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
Cobitis species exist in diploid populations, but mostly they occur in diploid-polyploid (d-p) ones. They are considered an important model organism to study biology and physiology of natural hybrid and polyploid vertebrates. Indeed, polyploidization causes a huge stress for the cell physiology and alter spermatogenesis in polyploid fish. The most ...
